Truth is the beginning of wisdom…

Quotes To Ponder

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse [money, bounty, assistance, gifts] from the public treasury.
- Alexis de Tocqueville

From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
- Alexander Frazer Tytler

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Archive for March, 2009

A sword hangs over our heads. It is a real threat that has been all but ignored.

On Feb. 3, Iran launched a “communications satellite” into orbit. At this very moment, North Korea is threatening to do the same. The ability to launch an alleged communications satellite belies a far more frightening truth. A rocket that can carry a satellite into orbit also can drop a nuclear warhead over any location on the planet in less than 45 minutes. Far too many timid or uninformed sources maintain that a single launch of a missile poses no true threat to the United States, given our retaliatory power.

A reality check is in order and must be discussed in response to such an absurd claim: In fact, one small nuclear weapon, delivered by an ICBM can destroy the United States by maximizing the effect of the resultant electromagnetic pulse upon detonation.

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a byproduct of detonating an atomic bomb above the Earth’s atmosphere. When a nuclear weapon is detonated in space, the gamma rays emitted trigger a massive electrical disturbance in the upper atmosphere. Moving at the speed of light, this overload will short out all electrical equipment, power grids and delicate electronics on the Earth’s surface. In fact, it would take only one to three weapons exploding above the continental United States to wipe out our entire grid and transportation network. It might take years to recover from, if ever.

This is not science fiction. If you doubt this, spend a short amount of time skimming the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack from April 2008. You will come away sobered.

Even as the new administration plans to spend trillions on economic bailouts, it has announced plans to reduce funding and downgrade efforts for missile defense. Furthermore, the United States’ reluctance to invest in a modern and credible traditional nuclear deterrent is a serious concern. What good will a bailout be if there is no longer a nation to bail out?

Fifty years ago, it was not Sputnik itself that sent a dire chill of warning around the world; it was the capability of the rocket that launched Sputnik. The rocket that lofted Sputnik into orbit also could have served as an ICBM. Yet for all its rhetoric, the Soviet Union was essentially a rational power that recognized the threat of mutual destruction and thus never stepped to the edge.

The world is different today. Intercontinental range missiles tipped with nuclear weapons in the hands of leaders driven by fanaticism, leaders that support global terrorism, leaders that have made repeated threats that they will seek our annihilation . . . can now at last achieve that dream in a matter of minutes.

Those who claim that there is little to fear from Iran or North Korea because “at best” they will have only one or two nuclear weapons ignore the catastrophic level of threat we now face from just “a couple” of nuclear weapons.

Again: One to three missiles tipped with nuclear weapons and armed to detonate at a high altitude – to achieve the strongest EMP over the greatest area of the United States – would create an EMP “overlay” that triggers a continent-wide collapse of our entire electrical, transportation, and communications infrastructure.

Within weeks after such an attack, tens of millions of Americans would perish. The impact has been likened to a nationwide Hurricane Katrina. Some studies estimate that 90% of all Americans might very well die in the year after such an attack as our transportation, food distribution, communications, public safety, law enforcement, and medical infrastructures collapse.

We most likely would never recover from the blow.

Two things need to be done now and without delay:

1. Make clear in the strongest of terms that, if either Iran or North Korea launches a rocket on a trajectory headed toward the territory of the United States, we will shoot it down. The risk of not doing so is beyond acceptable. And if they construe this as an act of war, so be it, for they fired the first shot. The risk of sitting back for 30 minutes and praying it is not an EMP strike is beyond acceptable, beyond rational on our part.

2. Funding for EMP defense must be a top national priority. To downgrade or halt our missile defense program, which at last is becoming viable after 25 years of research, would be an action of criminal negligence.

Surely, with such a threat confronting us, a fair and open debate, with full public access and the setting aside of partisan politics, is in order. In the meantime, a policy must be stated today that we will indeed shoot down any missile aimed towards the United States that is fired by Iran or North Korea. America’s survival, your survival, and your family’s survival might very well depend on it.

In 1992, Bill Clinton defeated George Bush, by campaigning on political consultant Jim Carville’s theme: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Here we are again – up to our necks in economic quicksand. Again, politicians, pollsters and pundits think we have a problem with the “economy.” And, of course, we do, and we need to work on it … but are we only treating the symptoms? Are we just trying to stitch up the patient without removing the tumors?

The economy is the symptom, not the disease. Unless we remove the moral and spiritual “tumors” that affect many in the White House, Senate, House, judiciary and right down to the citizenry, that sent us to the Emergency Room in the first place, we can expect neither a quick nor a lasting recovery … if any at all.

If the economy is the symptom, what is the disease? In January of 1984, President Reagan spoke to the National Religious Broadcasters Association in Washington, D.C. Here’s a portion of his speech:

“Government bureaucracies spend billions for problems related to drugs alcohol and disease. How much of that money could we save, how much better off might American’s be if all of us tried a little harder to live by the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule? I have been told that since the beginning of civilization, millions and millions of laws have been written. I have even heard someone suggest, it was well over several billion laws. And yet, taken all together, all those millions and millions of laws have not improved on the Ten Commandments one bit.”

In a lot of ways, Ronald Reagan was right. By getting away from the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule we, as a nation, have been going into a downward spiral of selfishness and greed. Let’s accept responsibility for our quandary and repent so we can move on in the right direction. Right choices will bring back real freedom and stifle immorality, liberal philosophy, and socialistic endeavors.

I would like to hear more preaching on 2 Chronicles 7:14. I would like to hear more spiritual leaders speaking out against the underlying disease. I would like to see more Christians in the marketplace and the public square “out themselves” as believers and make a stand – even if it turns out to be a last stand. And I would like to see us get back to the moral and spiritual underpinnings that made this country so great.

God needs to be getting more glory. How? It’s the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, stupid 🙂

Carbon dioxide … which humans exhale … is now regarded as a public danger according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).They are now planning for this exhaled gas from the air we breathe in to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, something the Act was not intended to do when it was enacted over 30 years ago.

Aggressive cap-and-trade measures are being debated on Capitol Hill and, if enacted, are rumored to rake in trillions of dollars for the federal government and raise the cost of living for Americans by thousands of dollars.

Dan Simmons, the director of state affairs at the Institute for Energy Research, calls cap-and-trade the largest backdoor tax in U.S. history.“In the budget it said $646 billion. They then are telling people on Capitol Hill that it is going to be $1.3 [trillion] to $1.9 trillion,” he points out. “That will make it the largest tax increase of all time of all American history and probably all world history.”

He says the problem with cap-and-trade is that it makes all people poorer today in order to tackle an alleged problem tomorrow. Ben Lieberman with The Heritage Foundation says cap-and-trade would usher in a permanent recession.

“We might never really have a full recovery if we have to live with these tremendous constraints on affordable energy use,” he adds, “so we would be talking about exactly the kind of thing that we are worried about now – job losses, high energy costs — these things being exacerbated and staying that way for years and years.”

A United Nations document on “climate change” has been distributed to a major environmental conclave that envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, that will involve trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body.

It is March 31 and has the brutal winter finally come to an end in the Great Plains? With temperatures across North Dakota 5 to 10 degrees below normal all winter long. Massive snowfalls blanketing the Peace Garden State for months. Now, North Dakota is enduring an end-of-March blizzard.The people of Fargo are paying the price as the ice-jammed Red River is cresting more than 40 feet over normal flooding conditions.

So, I ask you, what is the cause of all the cold, the snow, and the ice?Global warming, of course!

According to Kate White, a civil engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “climate change caused by global warming likely is changing ice conditions and adding to the unpredictability” of ice jams along the Red River, so she said.

What?Let me see if I get this. A “near-record snowpack,” along with below-normal temperatures, has led to more ice, which is acting unpredictably because of global warming?

What am I not getting here? I’ll tell you what I am getting – more proof that apocalyptic visions of global warming are driven by a particular worldview. Forget the facts … the politicians and warming-mongers are!Obama has bought into it. This is what he had to say: “I actually think the science around climate change is real. . . . If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota . . . that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously.”

What part of record snow is the result of global warming?

Folks, what we have to take seriously here is the fact that our worldview determines how we see the world and how we live in the world. And we better have it correct.Despite the fact that the globe has been cooling since at least 2002, or that near-record cold and snow have plagued much of North America all year long, all the proponents of global warming can see is – well, global warming.

This is why its adherents in Congress and in the White House want curbs on greenhouse gases, potentially ruinous cap-and-trade policies, and curbs on oil exploration (at a time when we need to decrease our dependence on foreign oil). And if in the near future you start paying upwards of $5 a pound for ground beef, thank those in Congress who want to tax cow flatulence as a way to combat global warming.

As the New York Times relates, renowned physicist Freeman Dyson has called “climate change an ‘obsession’ – the primary article of faith for ‘a worldwide secular religion’ known as environmentalism.”Dyson accuses the adherents of this religion of “relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models that foresee … imminent world devastation as icecaps melt, oceans rise and storms and plagues sweep the earth.”

But the models aren’t holding true. This is why the global warming scientists need to examine their worldview … as do those who are being sucked into the hubbub … then they need to step out of the computer lab and take a walk. But they’d better bundle up first.

This doesn’t mean we don’t take care of the earth in a balanced way … but don’t worship it! … it really isn’t your mother.

It seems like every day we’re hearing of another multi-billion dollar bailout. I believe it bears repeating what was said over 200 years ago about the fall of the Athenian Republic by Scots historian professor Alexander Tyler, circa 1787:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”

There it is folks. A nation of fools will we be if knowing history, we simply repeat it. It is up to those who know the truth to take a stand if we are to see our nation spared from the consequences proven through all of history to be our fate if we continue on the current path. Tyler also taught:

“The average age of the world’s greatest civilization has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence. From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back into bondage.”

We are presently between the apathy and dependency stage.

At the very core of this entire issue is our collective trust in the King of the Universe. Remember, it was Ronald Reagan who taught us that, “if we ever cease to be one nation under God, we will be a nation gone under.”

That is the bottom line. No economic plan will save us from the bondage that befalls nations that turn their backs on God. This, too, is proven by history. It is my constant prayer that our nation will turn back to the God of our Fathers. Only then will there be real “hope” for a future for America.

It must begin with the people of God. Church leaders must get their heads out of the sand and rise up to the call or we will have to answer to our children, grandchildren, and … God … for the liberty lost, because of our complacency. God has always had a people, a faithful remnant willing to sacrifice for Kingdom interests … the message of salvation, people, truth, and righteousness.

It appears that Barak Obama is moving full speed ahead to destroy the economy. Why? Perhaps Obama, as one report claims, knows exactly what he is doing and is purposely throwing our economy into chaos to put Americans in a position where they will be clamoring for a savior, paving the way for government takeover of a once-free people. Remember he has had a lot of input into his life from Marxist and socialist ideologues from associates and academia.

Whatever the reason, Americans will have to revisit the foundational principles that have made it the greatest nation on the face of the earth if we are to recover the principles of liberty under God. These biblical principles have provided restraints on American capitalism to compassion for people, and they will need to be reaffirmed and publicly acknowledged. The word “virtue” must once again become part of the American lexicon.

Even as the Obama crowd would waste no crisis in advancing their agenda, so should the people of God see this as an opportunity to rise up, exercise leadership and see America once again enjoy God’s favor as we publicly acknowledge that we again want to be “One Nation Under God.” Should the Church not stand up and lead the way?

Is America paying for it enemies to attack her?Is Congress committing treason …stupidity … or both?

From the East Coast to the “Left Coast,” America seems to be moving farther and farther from its Founders’ vision and government.

George Washington advised, “The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”Yet the Obama administration just pledged $900 million in U.S. taxpayer-funded aid to Hamas-controlled Gaza and Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority.

Thomas Jefferson counseled us, “We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”Yet the feds have skyrocketed our national debt by trillions of dollars, and they plan much more fiscal expansion, with few expectations of resistance. George Washington admonished, “To contract new debts is not the way to pay for old ones.” But we keep borrowing and bailing out, and we watch the stock market plunge further every time we do.

By the choices we make we define ourselves. We reveal what we believe by what we say. And so, too, do our institutions.

Congress, in writing the $789 billion stimulus bill, revealed that, for all its “Buy American” blather, it does not truly put America first. It does not believe that 10 million jobless Americans, in the country their fathers built, should receive any preference in hiring 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens who broke into this country and owe her no loyalty, allegiance or love … let alone pay any taxes!

Is this an insult to jobless Americans?Sure is!Does this show the lack of patriotism by a lot of our congressmen? You gamble!What other conclusion can one reach after Congress refused to require that employers on construction projects, paid for by U.S. tax dollars in the stimulus bill, verify that their workers are Americans? For that is precisely what Congress did.

The first paragraph of the front-page story in USA Today says it all. “Los Angeles – Tens of thousands of jobs created by the economic stimulus law could end up filled by illegal immigrants, particularly in big states like California where undocumented workers are heavily represented in construction, experts on both sides of the issue say.”

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, illegal aliens will take around 300,000 of the 2 million construction jobs that will be supposedly created by the “stimulus” bill. This figure is based on Census Bureau estimates that 15% of all construction workers are illegal aliens or immigrants who are not authorized to work in the United States.

This conference is international in scope being opened by Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic and the European Union. When it comes to manmade global warming, Klaus calls that a myth. He is also an outspoken critic of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and says the panel is one-sided and has a political agenda.

Featured at the conference will be more than 70 scientists who do not subscribe to the notion that so-called global warming is driven by manmade emissions of carbon dioxide, one of those being Harrison “Jack” Schmitt – one of the last astronauts to walk on the moon.

The Conference is being hosted by The Heartland Institute. Dan Miller is the director of public relations at Heartland. Miller says, “What we are trying to accomplish with this conference is to present to the politicians and to the public that the debate is not over about global warming or climate change; that there is plenty of room for disagreement; and that sound science shows that the earth is not warming.” … “For much of the latter part of the 20th century there’s been a mild warming as we come out of an ice age – but the planet today is much cooler than it was a thousand years ago.”

Besides the 70+ scientists at this conference, more than 650 scientists worldwide have expressed skepticism over manmade climate change.